


Fixers

by slytherclawkilljoy



Category: Person of Interest (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abby is very powerful, F/F, Raven and Monty are queer roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5544398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherclawkilljoy/pseuds/slytherclawkilljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So a brief flailing over on tumblr imagining Abby as a fixer in New York instead of Zoe Morgan led to this POI AU of my favourite The 100 pairing.</p><p>Raven fixes cars, Abby fixes problems. Their two worlds collide and their numbers come up...</p><p>Started as an AU, but some familiar faces decided to show up in Chapter 4, so in the long run it's going to be more of a crossover - albeit a crossover in which Zoe Morgan is eradicated from the POI canon. (Regrettable, but we get Doctor Mechanic as the trade off so I'm calling it a win!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He grabs your ass on the way past and you grit your teeth, scowl into the engine you are leaning over, and say nothing.

Fucking Vega, with the creeper moustache, the wandering hands, and the abundance of highly paid jobs that you really really need if you want to be able to afford to make it through senior year.

"Be in the back for a little while kiddo, we're not to be disturbed, understood?" You stick your right hand out in a thumbs up for a moment, and then quickly get on with the repair job in front of you. The Range Rover's been torn up pretty bad by machine gun fire, and there's heavy impact damage to the front. It's nothing you can't fix, of course, but you know your clients pay a premium for quick turnarounds and you've got a reputation to uphold - in and out in under 24 hours, good as new, no evidence of damage, and no trace of the repair work itself - you reckon this one'll be ready in under 10.

You hear raised voices coming from the back room, Vega and whichever bag of muscle Muniz has sent down to keep him in check this time. You move round to the side of the car to inspect the bullet hole damage and see if you can get ears in on the conversation. It's a habit of yours. You know one of these days Vega's going to overstep just a little too far and be out of the picture for good, and you want to make sure you have leverage so you can convince these guys to keep you around after he's gone.

The office door opens sharply and- Whoa, shit, Muniz sure as hell didn't send her - you drag your eyes up the body of the formidable woman standing in the doorway, forgetting to even pretend to be fixing bullet holes. Looking past her you see Vega hunched over in pain in front of the desk, hand on his groin.

"I don't like being touched without invitation, Mr. Vega"

"Fuck you, lady. Get outta my shop, I aint telling you nothin anyways"

The cold look on the woman's face darkens for a moment, you can tell this is not how she intended her trip down to the garage to go down, but she quickly regains full composure. "I assure you, you've already told me more than enough." She smirks and turns purposefully to leave the shop. Her eyes meet yours and while she seems surprised to find you standing there staring, her gaze flits over your body quickly and returns to meet yours. There's a flicker of recognition, the smirk deepens, and you snap your jaw shut and avert your gaze back toward the car. She chuckles softly and leans in close as she passes - "You're not exactly what I expected either, "kiddo"."

You don't realise it but you hold your breath as she goes by. Who was she? What did she want from Vega? Information, that was clear enough, but what? The kind of information you might pick up if you had your ear to the ground, if you were the favourite mechanic of Joshua Muniz and his men, if you were the kind of mechanic who made copies of your boss's hard drive whenever you could get into the office at the end of a shift. You smile. Yeah, you think you might be able to help this lady out.

You run out into the yard just as she's climbing into the back of a black Mercedes.

"Wait!" She looks up, the driver holding the door open tenses and turns toward you, clearly ready to engage if necessary.

"Relax" She shoots him a look and stands to meet you. There's that smirk again, like she was expecting you to come out after her, like she played you. You don't like to be played but for some reason you don't seem to mind it from her, you don't want to look weak though so you push your shoulders back, look darkly at the driver for a moment and then lock her gaze.

"Can I help you?" She sounds amused, but not all that invested.

"No. I think maybe I can help you." A glint in her eye reflects the steel in yours - now she's curious. "You want info, and Vega didn't give you much beyond sexual harassment, I wouldn't want you to have come all the way down here just to be disappointed. I know things, things maybe you want to know too." 

"Oh really?" She looks you up and down, clearly not sure quite what to make of this fierce young mechanic in front of her. It takes a while but you stand firm, and she must see something because she doesn't just dismiss you offhand like you knew she might. "Ok- " she pauses.

"Raven" you offer.

"Ok, Raven, let's say I do want to know these things you know… What's in it for you?"

You grin, and let your eyes wander shamelessly over her well-fitted suit once again. "Dinner."

It catches her off guard and for a second you swear that smirk becomes a smile, her eyes flash again and she gives the slightest of nods. "Dinner." She laughs softly as she climbs back into the car and the driver shuts the door. She winds down the window and meets your gaze once more. "Ok" she says "I'll pick you up at 8."

You stare after the car as it pulls away, grinning broadly, pretty proud of yourself for how that went. "Nailed it, Reyes." You give the air a little punch and turn back towards the shop...

Wait.

You didn't ever tell her where you live. You didn't even get her name.

Fuck.

 

***

 

You sit on the end of your bed and stare at the shoes in front of you, trying to decide. The boots scream black leather badass and the way they come right up to meet your leg brace definitely adds to the futuristic don't-fuck-with-me vibe you're already channeling with your dress - short, black, buckles, straps and a cutout waist - but maybe they're a little too aggressive, you don't want to seem confrontational… You eye up a softer pair of heels, considering. You don't even know if it matters - you didn't give her your number, you didn't give her your address. What if she had just been playing along, agreeing to dinner to end the conversation? You don't want to get your hopes up just to be disappointed, but there was something about the way she left you earlier that makes a part of you really start to believe she might be here at 8, and there was something about the way she talked to Vega that makes you pretty sure she'd be able to find you if she wanted to.

"Are we going out?" Your roommate sticks his head around the door. "I know you only play Nicki so loud when you're getting ready for a big night - it's like, my batphone, my cue to find my cutest clean shirt and start mixing the drinks! So we heading to the club or do you have other plans?"

"I don't know Monty," you sigh, turning down the stereo and facing your friend, "I might have a date - maybe - but if she doesn't show we are definitely going dancing instead"

"Awh, come on, Rae, what makes you think she wouldn't show? You're a goddess. No one would dare stand you up." He looks like a fierce puppy, ready to fight anyone for making you feel insecure. 

"Stand down, boy," you laugh "it's a little more complicated than that…"

You explain what happened at the garage, and Monty looks impressed. "Jeez Reyes, look at you, planning exotic adventures with powerful women of the criminal underworld while I watch netflix and fawn over Chris Evans' torso on tumblr - this definitely calls for a drink, come on!" He pulls you into the kitchen and starts mixing up cocktails, moving quickly with grace and precision. "Here, drink up," he passes you a tall glass of dubious coloured liquid you're fairly certain is not any sort of established cocktail, "she'll be here in half an hour, and if she doesn't show there's three more where that came from."

\---

"Pull over here please." The young mechanic had been easy to find - The NYIT duffel bag in the garage had led you to believe she might be working there to pay her way through college, and the assumption had panned out. An engineering student, with an extremely impressive record. She clearly had a very keen mind, which was a good sign - you didn't actually need her to know anything useful, as the trouble with Vega had been sorted almost as easily as you'd found the girl, but you hope she'll make for stimulating dinner company regardless. You smile and find the number you sweet-talked out of NYIT's dean of admissions earlier in the evening.

\---

Caller ID: Unknown - Your phone buzzes in your hand, the clock reads exactly 20:00.

"Monty… Oh my god…" you look up at him, surprised and excited and more than a little relieved.

"Well, answer it then!" He rushes over to the window and lets out a low whistle, "Nice wheels" he says, giving you an impressed nod.

You take a deep breath and pick up the call.

"Hello… Yes… "Abby", cute name… I'll try to remember that… Haha, Abby, really, are you threatening me already? I haven't even left my apartment… My roommate… Can you blame him? It's a pretty sweet ride… I'd like that a lot… Great… I'll be down in a moment."

You click off the call and grab your purse and keys before stopping sharply in the middle of the room to look down at your bare feet and then up at Monty in panic.

He grins, "Definitely the boots."

\---

The drive to the restaurant is very short, and is filled mostly with Abby explaining how she found you and you trying really hard not to stare too inappropriately at the beautiful woman in the seat next to you. You thought she had been pretty dressed up earlier on, but apparently her base-line aesthetic was just four or five stages higher than the general population because her evening attire is in a whole other league. Her navy dress fits her body perfectly and her wavy hair tumbles loosely over one shoulder revealing her long neck and a subtle but clearly expensive pair of earrings.

"-you see I want to be transparent with you, Raven" the soft rasp in her voice as she says your name brings your attention back to the fact that she's actually talking to you and you make sure to listen to the rest of what she has to say. "My business is knowing things, and knowing people - and then knowing how to use that information for maximum effect. My clients rely on me to make their problems go away, one way or another. So I hope you understand that it wasn't hard for me to find you, but as long you're an innocent third party in the matter at hand, I have no interest in controlling you or using any of what I know against you."

You can't tell if she's genuinely trying to reassure you or just intimidate you, but you don't need her reassurance and you're not easily intimidated so you just laugh, "Well I'll try to give you and your client something you can use, but I won't make any promises about my "innocence"." she smiles at that, a little involuntarily, you can see she's trying to hold the cards tonight. "Who's your client anyway?" you ask.

The car pulls up outside the sweet little place Abby picked out. "Why don't we get settled down with a good glass of wine before we start talking real business."

"Mine's a beer," you say with a wink, as you lead the way into the restaurant and hold open the door for Abby, pretty sure you're about to have the most interesting date of your life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby and Raven go on that date. There is beer, there is Brazilian food, and Raven tells Abby a secret.

It's a quiet place, delicate and earthy. Every inch of the décor seems deliberate, crafted by a careful eye. She smiles at a waiter who leads you over to a table toward the back of the restaurant. The table is shielded by a wall on one side, and from Abby's seat she can see everything, the door, the bar, the kitchen, the thin staircase that leads to a mezzanine - an office you think.

"So I take it he does more than just drive, huh?" You raise an eyebrow at her and nod your head over to the bar where the very serious suit-clad heavyweight takes infrequent gulps of club soda as he scans the room. Despite his impressive stature he somehow manages to be pretty inconspicuous, you probably wouldn't notice him if you weren't looking - definitely ex-military, you think.

"He has his uses," she smiles and thanks the waiter for the menus, "We'll take a bottle of the Sancerre please, and that beer you fancied Raven?"

"A Brooklyn IPA for me, thanks." You open up the menu and start to read through, everything sounds delicious.

"Have whatever you like, this one's on me."

This one. It's innocuous, you know, but you file it away anyway as evidence to support your thin hope that this might not be the one and only time you get to sit across from this beautiful woman, meeting her sharp gaze over the table and trying to decide between steak and salmon.

"Ms Griffin," an older woman in a strange but perfectly tailored olive green tux is at your table with your drinks. She holds herself with great poise and you can tell she's not just a member of the wait staff. "It is my personal pleasure to have you back at Jardim," she smiles broadly as she places the drinks deftly on the table in front of you, no deliberation at all over which belongs to whom. "Please consider this evening on the house, a gift," she meets Abby's eyes and for an instant the detached grace gives way to something else, it's warm, you feel that, but there's a sadness there too, "or payment in kind," she places her hand on Abby's shoulder for a moment as she makes to leave and it's almost fatherly. "Thank you, Abby."

"It's my pleasure, Ana." Abby's face is softer than you've seen it yet, her guards all down for a beat, and you feel like maybe you should look away, like you're intruding on something, but it's fascinating and you're transfixed, and then Ana is moving off towards the bar and it's over.

Abby chuckles lightly and meets your eyes again. "Well then, Raven, definitely have whatever you like," she raises her glass and you meet it with your bottle with a chink, "this one's on them."

You get the steak, obviously. She goes for seafood, Moqueca - "A classic," she tells you. And you sit in silence for a minute or so while you wait. Your mind is buzzing with lots of questions, things you want to know about Abby, professionally and personally, but you don’t know where to start. You fiddle with a napkin and thrum your fingertips on the side of your beer bottle trying to vent some of the mental fizzing out through your hands. The woman before you just reclines calmly, head thrown back slightly as she relaxes into her chair waiting for you to break the silence. She’s comfortable here. 

"So you know her then, Ana?" Your voice cuts into the air between you nervously but with purpose.

"We've known each other a long time, yes, though we'd been out of touch until recently. She came into some trouble, her partner, well," she pauses to sip her wine, "Yasmin has always been rather feisty. This time she pushed the wrong people a little too far."

"And you fixed it?"

"That's what I do."

"Wait," and it clicks, "she said Griffin. As in The Griffin." Abby roles her eyes slightly and stifles a laugh, "You're him? You're the Griffin?"

She pushes a hand through her hair and motions down to herself idly, "I'm her, yes. It's a clunky moniker, a little unwieldy, but it's not unuseful. You've heard of me then?"

It’s your turn to roll your eyes. "Sure, yeah, I mean, working in one of Muniz' shops and all, I hear all kinds of things. That's why we're here anyway, right? Because of the things I might have heard?"

"I suppose so," she pours herself a second glass of Sancerre, rests her fingers ever so lightly round the stem as she brings it to her lips, "but also because I admire boldness, and because I don't like to eat alone.”

Your food arrives and it’s magic in your mouth and, while you’ve definitely been hoping you’ll get to repeat this one day, if it all ends after this particular steak in this particular company you know you’ll go out happy.

“So you’re a mechanic?” It’s an opening, a request for you to share yourself a little if you like. She offers it gently as she spears a prawn with her fork.

“I’m studying. Mechanical and Electronic Engineering at NYIT. The job at Vega’s pays the bills but hopefully it’s not a long-term thing. It’s not how I’d ideally want to be spending my time, you know?”

“I can’t imagine that ‘in the company of Mr Vega’ is how many people would ideally want to spend their time.” Her nose wrinkles in distaste and you laugh your agreement.

Conversation flows easily for the rest of the meal. You tell her about the copies you have of the hard drives and she says she’ll gladly take a look, but she thinks she wrapped her problem with Vega up that afternoon. You wonder why she’d have bothered to come out like this, with you, if she knew she didn’t need anything you have. “I told you, I appreciate boldness,” is all she offers when you question it, and while you’re not completely convinced, you let it go. She asks you about the garage, maybe trying to work out how involved you are with the gang side of business, and she asks you about your studies. You talk wildly then, for a few minutes, about your course and your thesis supervisor, and how he won’t let you pursue your chosen topic because it’s ‘too experimental’ for undergraduate study because there’s no existing primary research, so you’re stuck writing essays and building prototypes based off of simplistic and limiting ideas you understood when you were twelve.

She’s smiling at you now, appraisingly. “Well then, you must have an outlet,” curiosity and mischief blend together in equal parts in her tone, “tell me Raven, when you’re not fixing cars or sitting in a lecture hall what is it that you do to keep that mind of yours busy?”

You don’t know why you tell her but it seems you’re in a sharing mood, “I build things, invent things I suppose. All this stuff I’ve been learning, I had to put it into something. I’ve built a machine-”

"A machine?" She laughs and lingers over the word and you wonder if she's mocking you, but her smile is warm and she motions for you to continue so you think she must be laughing to herself at a joke you don't get.

"Yeah, it's uh, a project, I guess. It keeps me busy. It's a couple of blocks from my place," you pause, not sure if you should say it but for some reason you do. "I could show you," it comes off like a question and you wonder if you've overstepped, but her face is alight and she's already reaching for her purse.

“Turner,” she calls out to the driver as she stands and he’s on his feet immediately and moving to open the door out to the street, “we’re going on a field trip.”

  ***

You lead her down the side street behind the office building you found a few months ago. It’s unoccupied and benign and no one ever comes down here, but for some reason the utilities are always up to date, running and paid for. It’s an anomaly you found with one of the early incarnations of your scanner. You figure it’s probably being kept by some Wall Street type as a shell for something vaguely shady, and you hope whoever it is isn’t watching to closely.

“It’s in here,” you motion to the fire escape, “top floor. Don’t worry, it’s meant to look rickety as hell, gotta put people off from sneaking in.” She eyes the ladder nervously, taking in what appear to be loose rungs and the cracked and rusting platforms above.

“You’re telling me you designed this death trap – deliberately?”

“Hey, it works. Haven’t had any unwanted visitors yet. It’s safer than it looks, I promise.”

“And what about wanted visitors, have you had many of those?”

“No,” you feel your face flush slightly, “no visitors at all, till now.” You turn back to the ladder to move away from the moment between you and begin to pull yourself up. It’s a bit awkward with your braced leg, but you’ve perfected the art having done this every day for the last four months and you’re up quickly. You wait for the comment about your leg, the pity veiled as praise, but if she has anything to say about it she keeps it to herself. You like that.

“Come on then, Griffin, you wanna see it this year or what?” You wait till you hear the sounds of her ascent below before reaching for the next ladder, grinning widely.

Up on the roof you take a moment to look out at the city around you. It's quiet now, here in this part of town. The buildings here are simple office blocks mostly and the streets are fairly populated during the day, but this place is a place of work and mostly people are home with their families by this time. Abby is standing with you before long, barely out of breath and looking intrigued as ever about what might be coming next. You open the padlock and pry open the door that leads down into the building and you take a moment to be impressed that she had no complaints about climbing up here with you, up a dirty fire escape both dressed to the nines. You guess she must be more used to this kind of thing than you’d imagined. ‘This kind of thing’ – well that’s silly for a start, there’s really nothing like this. Climbing into an abandoned building with a stranger because they’ve told you they’ve built ‘a machine’, it’s hardly the kind of situation you can get used to.

“Aren’t you even a little worried I’m a serial killer or something?” You ask as you begin to lead the way down into the stairwell. She just laughs.

“No, Raven, I’m not worried at all, and besides I’d be able to handle myself if you were.” The sharp crackle makes you jump and you yell out in surprise,

“Jesus. Fuck. Is that a taser?” She laughs softly again at the obvious blend of panic and arousal on your face.

“Yes, it was a gift,” she says simply, “maybe you’re the one who should be worried.”

You shake your head and move along the corridor towards the room you’ve been working in for so long now. “You better not fucking taser me Abby.”

“I hope you give me no reason to,” she quips from beside you as you come to a halt outside a door. You fumble a little with your keys, your chest rising and falling heavily as you hope this wasn’t a stupid decision. The lock clicks and you push open the door.

“Here,” you motion for her to go inside, “take a look at her, my pride and joy.”


	3. Chapter 3

"Raven, I…" she stands in the middle of the room circling on the spot, taking in the burnished iron around her. The room is full of shapes and shadows, spirals and spikes. Great sections move and slot together and then break apart. A wire grid covers the ceiling and on every surface more pieces of every shape and size churn together to make the machine. In every component there are tiny holes, and through the holes shine thousands of miniature lights. Some shine brightly without faltering, others fade up and down in a steady pulse. Yet more shine solidly then are all of a sudden extinguished. Abby stands, mesmerized, amid the pulsing, flickering, fading and bursting of the lights. "It's beautiful," she murmurs, seemingly to herself, then she turns to you full of questions, "but you called it a machine, what does it do?"

"It's a map, sort of," you shrug and gesture to a tall cut of iron beside you that at closer inspection echoes the shape of some of the most famous architecture in the Manhattan skyline. Abby looks around her again, this time inspecting more closely, trying to spot the clues and work it out.

"Five different colors for the lights," she muses, "for the five districts?"

"Yeah." You move closer towards her and point to a particularly dense and brightly glowing triangular shaped bowl. "The lights mirror human activity in the city - It uses cell phone signals, GPS check-ins, the power grid, thermal imaging, noise levels - with algorithms set to focus on just what it recognizes to be human. It also factors in social media activity, so if a ton of people are talking about a particular place that’ll contribute to its readings."

"The Yankee Stadium," she says as she reaches out to touch the shining shape before her.

"Yep." You grin at her, glad she recognized the landmark, even in its slightly surrealist interpretation. "Yankees are getting whipped pretty badly by the Blue Jays right now, and the whole place is buzzing with life." She inspects the bowl more closely for a little while then moves on around the room, trying to decode how the impressionistic metalwork around her translates to become the city she knows so well.

"Raven this is incredible," her voice is barely louder than a whisper, reverent. "I'd say I'm impressed but, well, when you asked me to dinner outside the garage I was impressed. When you told me you had regular backups of Vega's hard drive I was impressed. But this," she opens her palms out to the glimmering of the machine around her, "Raven this is something else." She continues to explore the room, trailing her hands over the blinking shapes, hovering over the bicycle frame and wheel that seem to represent Coney Island. "It's brilliant, and beautiful, but I suppose I have to ask why?"

“Monty likes to say energy is the heart of the city, and I built this to watch it beat, but it’s not that. I don’t think it’s a heart-“

  “-It’s a brain,” she cuts in. “All these electrical impulses, like neurons firing all over the city and you’re tracking them, scanning them. It’s an EEG of the whole of New York.” She is entranced, and the dancing yellow glow of the room is reflected back at you in her usually dark irises. You grin a little smugly at the way she is obviously thrown. Obviously impressed.

“I’m not tracking them.” She looks up at you, dubious. “No data is ever stored, it’s just real time imaging, and it’s mapped fairly abstractly I suppose. You’d have a hard time getting any valuable scientific information out of it.”

Her right hand gently spins the tarnished wheel, lights on the spokes fading up and down as it turns. “So it’s not science then,” she says simply, “it’s art.” 

“I don’t know about that,” you shrug involuntarily, “but it’s soothing. I like to be surrounded by this, this tiny version of the city, to feel it wake, and sleep, and come alive around me. It’s impossible to feel alone in here. And you know, it’s cool as fuck.“ You try unsuccessfully to pull the two of you back up out of the weird deep place you didn’t mean to fall to, but Abby’s not buying it. She closes the distance between you and pulls your chin gently around to face her, her fingers hover lightly in the space between your jaw and your neck.

“Do you often feel alone, Raven?”

That rasp over your name hits you hard just like the first time and you forget what you’d told yourself you should be saying.

“No, I-“ your eyes dart over the elaborate network of metal and light that fills the room around you, “not anymore.”

And it’s time to be bold again. You reach out, hand resting lightly on the side of her head and pull yourself toward her, closing the distance even further until it’s barely there at all and you can feel her pulse through your fingers and her breath on your cheek. Her lips find yours. It’s safe. She’s perfect. Your chest drums a panic through your body and you wonder what the fuck you’re doing, and as you try to figure out how to pull away, how to lose yourself more deeply into this, the sharp buzzing of your cell phone cuts through the strange liminal space in which you’ve found yourselves.

The moment is over and you pull away, reaching into your bag for your phone without making eye contact. Out of the corner of your eye you see her bring her hand to her lips. She looks as confused as you feel, and it’s pretty clear neither of you woke up this morning imagining your day would make its way here.

“It wouldn’t ring unless it’s Monty, and he wouldn’t ring unless it’s an emergency, not while I’m on a-“ you catch her eye awkwardly then and quickly look away, busying your gaze with the steel labyrinth of Central Park as you slide open the call. “Monty, hey, what’s wrong? … What? … Do you recognize him? … Ok, I’ll be right there, just don’t leave the house, ok?”

“Trouble?” Her concern is genuine.

“Yeah, he says some guy’s been circling the block since about eleven, rang the bell twice too. Monty didn’t answer ‘cause he’d seen from the window the guy was packing. It’s probably just one of the guy’s from the garage but I should get back, see what they want, make sure Monty doesn’t get nightmares.” She follows you out of the machine room and you lock the door securely behind you and head off together back down the corridor.

“It doesn’t sound very safe. I hope this has nothing to do with your having been seen with me, I have no intention of getting you into anything dangerous.”

“Hey, my world’s plenty dangerous already. I can take care of myself.”

“I believe that.” She’s slow to cross the roof, typing out a message on her cell. “Turner’s bringing the car round.”

“It’s not far-“

“-I want to see you home safely.”

You think about arguing the point but it did all sound dodgy as fuck and getting home quickly, not exhausted, and with a taser-toting femme fatale and her bodyguard to back you up definitely seems to be the best plan you have. You nod once in assent and focus on getting down the ladders as quickly as you can.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews/comments greatly appreciated, come find me on tumblr as uncorrectedsleuth if you want to chat about queer folk being queer.


End file.
